We mentioned this in a previous article, but it might be noteworthy on its own. Amid all of the wild speculation that Tom Brady could possibly land with his favorite team growing up, the San Francisco 49ers, one player wants to make it clear who he feels should be throwing him passes in 2020.
It's not entirely clear what All-Pro tight end George Kittle was responding to, if anything, but he posted the following on Instagram today.
Kittle, of course, caught 85 footballs this past season from quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo and turned them into 1,053 receiving yards and five touchdowns. It was his second consecutive season recording 1,000-or-more yards and just as many trips into the end zone.
Kittle obviously believes the 49ers can return to the Super Bowl with Garoppolo, who helped guide the team there this past season.
Then you have to wonder what shipping Garoppolo, who is well-liked by teammates, out of town for a quarterback who is 14 years older, might do to the locker room.
"I think, just our mindset going into this offseason, if guys treat it the right way, I think we'll have every opportunity in the world to go back (to the Super Bowl)," Kittle said the week after Super Bowl LIV.
Another of Garoppolo's teammates who isn't buying into the Brady-to-49ers narrative is running back Jeff Wilson Jr.
"It's ludicrous," Wilson told Jose Luis Sanchez III of Sports Illustrated. "He just took us all the way to the Super Bowl, great season, 14 wins. I mean there's not a lot of quarterbacks that's even in this league that just had a season like that. And then you go from that season taking a team all the way to the Super Bowl, to talks of being traded.
"He's a great quarterback, he's been that way ever since he's been to San Fran. It's just unfortunate that he got hurt the year before and then kind of, you know, threw him back in the wilderness a little bit but he came right back in like he never left, and took a team all the way to the Super Bowl. So how can you talk about moving him or trading him to another team?"
Wilson didn't stop there.
"He's a leader," the running back continued. "And then when it's crunch time, it's like he turns into a totally different person. It's not the cool, calm, and collected Jimmy Garoppolo anymore. It's the leader of a national football team, and a very good one at that.
"So that's the type of person that he comes in, he gets everybody's attention, and he makes everybody focus and makes everybody want to play hard for him. And when you have somebody that can do that, especially your quarterback, I mean, your team is destined for greatness."
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